postfix inet_interfaces keeps changing

English Network/Internet
#1

OpenSuse 13.1 x86_64
Something keeps changing my main.cf inet_interfaces from inet_interfaces = all to inet_interfaces = localhost.
It happens every couple of weeks or so, has anyone else seen this?
BTW: Its one of the common reasons for the dreaded “Connection refused” error.
It also results in “Delayed Mail (till being retried)” emails in your local mail

#2

If you modify the postfix config manually, you should probably set MAIL_CREATE_CONFIG=“no” in /etc/sysconfig/mail to prevent the system from regenerating the config.

Or make your configuration in /etc/sysconfig/mail and/or /etc/sysconfig/postfix if possible. In your case the option SMTPD_LISTEN_REMOTE (in mail) is probably the one you might want to change.
Note that you have to run /usr/sbin/config.postfix manually after you modified those files to regenerate the actual postfix config.
If you use YaST to change the settings (either “Network Services”->“EMail Server”, or “/etc/sysconfig editor”), this should be done automatically.

#3

Thaks!
I looked at the file and decided that probably changing SMTPD_LISTEN_REMOTE=no to yes would be the right option. If that doesnt work then i’ll try changing MAIL_CREATE_CONFIG instead.
I get local mail fwd’d from my other system to me so that should do it, no?

#4

Well, yes, I suppose so. Especially if that (inet_interfaces) was the only option that was changed automatically “from time to time” and changing only that back fixed your problems.

/usr/sbin/config.postfix has exactly this code (on 13.2):

    if test "$SMTPD_LISTEN_REMOTE" == "yes" ; then
      if  "$(echo "$POSTFIX_LISTEN" | tr 'A-Z' 'a-z' )" != "" ]; then
        $PCONF -e "inet_interfaces = $POSTFIX_LISTEN"
      else
        $PCONF -e "inet_interfaces = all"
      fi
    else
        $PCONF -e "inet_interfaces = localhost"
    fi

So if you have POSTFIX_LISTEN="" in /etc/sysconfig/postfix (which is the default), this will set “inet_interfaces = all” in the resulting postfix config, otherwise it will set inet_interfaces to the value of POSTFIX_LISTEN (and it sets “inet_interfaces = localhost” if SMTPD_LISTEN_REMOTE is “no”).

#5

I checked /etc/sysconfig/postfix and yeh, POSTFIX_LISTEN=""
It looks like /usr/sbin/config.postfix on 13.1 is the same as you posted for 13.2 also

#6

Ok, this should result in “inet_interfaces = all” in the postfix config then.

It looks like /usr/sbin/config.postfix on 13.1 is the same as you posted for 13.2 also

Yes, there haven’t been many changes there in 13.2 AFAIK…
And radically changing the options/config from one release to the next would not be a good thing anyway.